Resident packed a hearing in Red Bank about removing four pieces of land from a state open space list on Monday. The hearing lasted for more than three hours.

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Nearly 80 people filled a municipal courtroom to overwhelmingly oppose a borough proposal to remove four pieces of land from a state open space list.

Critics, including environmental advocates the Sierra Club and Clean Ocean Action, said keeping the bulk of the properties on the list would better protect them from development and improve public access to the Navesink.

But supporters said the tracts, which include a library parking lot and a waterfront tract at Maple Cove, never should have been preserved as open space in the first place. ...